Fun Home and Issues With Narrative Identity Essay

In the graphical memoir, Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, by Alison Bechdel presents the author's past experiences depicting the level of trauma, abuse and dysfunctional originating from her experiences. In the text, Bechdel presents certain issues that were of concern to her and her family as she grew up portraying the themes of sexuality, death, and family relationships. The neglect, isolation, and brutality of the father made them suffer dysfunctional family though, to everyone else they tried to show and behave like a normal family. This paper tries to analyze the author's perception and effects originating from the painful experiences of her childhood in her family In order to show the effects and the outcomes achieved by this graphical narration the paper will also establish the physical, psychological and functional effects of the storytelling to the author. Therefore, in these evaluations, clear establishment of the traumatic, abusive and dysfunctional effects of the writing as a way to portray the author's memoir in reflecting the psychological appeal.

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Bechdel's primary intention to tell the story in the Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic was to depict the trauma she encountered after realizing her father's sexual orientation shortly before his death. She is homosexual and finds out that her father was seeing a seventeen-year-old boy, he was gay. She was traumatized by the revelation as she relates the family relationship between her father, Bruce Bechdel and other siblings as well as the relationship between the parents. Bechdel feels emotionally abused by the way her father posed in his father-daughter relationship, husband-wife relationship, and father-son relationship (Beachdel 2006, p. 14 - 17). The neglect, isolation, and brutality of the father made them suffer dysfunctional family though, to everyone else they tried to show and behave like a normal family. In many cases, individuals with past life emotional and psychological ordeal feel that their trust concern the people around them becomes compromised.

The effects of the family dysfunction made Bechdel develop hatred towards her father even when he was living. The constant disagreements and the cold treatment of her mother, her, and the brothers made them distaste him and fear him. Following his suicidal death, Bechdel and her family are left to deal with the traumatic way he died and the impact of the revelation of his sexual orientation. The trauma leaves her fighting with her identity because she is also lesbian. She suffers dysfunctional not decided on whether to continue her sexual orientation life or associate herself with bisexual life like her late father. The level of traumatic and dysfunctional of her family relationship and the sexual orientation among the members of her family makes her express her distaste and troubled mind as a caution to the society and others in her situation. She is affected by her past and feels she should not be judged by her experiences when she says: "I'm bad. Not good like you..." (153) her emphasis on the image she portrays to her readers with the stress on her "bad" caution. Although she feels that she was here to help them understand the issues that people face in life but finds herself paint a beautiful image to the same readers. Consequently, a person with past life sufferings that result in traumatizing experiences suffers inferiority complex and low self-esteem.

In telling the story, Alison Bechdel does not recover from the traumatic and emotional abuse experienced in her life. Throughout the cartoony representation of her frustrations and measures to both herself and the rest of the people with similar situations, she finds that the story entices more critics. The spin of the story evokes inaccurate exposure to the impact of the trauma she suffered during the ordeal erupting new perspectives of the trauma effects on her. The story she targeted to yield a healing effect to her emotional appeal drastically brings a new measure of psychological and dysfunctional challenges. The negative uproar from her mother who was not happy with her exposure to their family dysfunctional finds them experiencing isolations and emotional disconnections. Both her mother and her brothers though she acknowledges their consent in writing the story, It is not depicted her getting their consent to subject them in her story. Although Bechdel's writing of this story was intended to expose her father's shortcomings it also played as her tribute to his death. This shows that though her initial intentions were to make public awareness on sexual orientation and family dysfunctions contribution to trauma, abuse, and dysfunction, telling the story seemed to bring Bechdel more harm than good.

Nevertheless, the story is outrageously depicted to have its shares in bringing Bechdel a number of emotional, traumatic, and dysfunctional effects the positive reputations were more than any negative effect the narration could yield. Bechdel process of writing the documentary in the child diary helps her relate better to traumatizing issues of her early life. As she progresses in the narration Bechdel is able to deal with past abuse and dysfunctional relationships in her family. She helps her family realize being subjected to abuse and trauma made her life failing in many of things she treasured most. She finally says: "I suppose that a lifetime spent hiding one's erotic truth could have a cumulative renunciatory effect. Sexual shame is in itself a kind of death....." (228). this feeling was to show the positive effect of the writing therapy. As a way to reach out to others Bechdel is able to make demonstrative illustrations of situations that she felt were socially affecting children due to physical, emotional, psychological abuse among other forms of child endangerments. Although the writing has its share of criticisms, the book is an award winner globally in major prize recognition agencies. This achievement shows that Bechdel was in a way able to hit her spot in achieving her awareness campaign.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the literal contribution of Alison Bechdel writing in her comical recount of her past plays a significant role in making her healing process more than the intended urge. The story she targeted to yield a healing effect to her emotional appeal drastically brings a new measure of psychological and dysfunctional challenges. The negative uproar from her mother who was not happy with her exposure to their family dysfunctional finds them experiencing isolations and emotional disconnections. Though, this story attach its share of critics it helps open up intended impacts of sexual orientation and family relationships as well as the contribution of both to the functionality and dysfunctions of the society. This narration creates self-healing for the narrator to come to terms with her traumatic and abuse experiences.

Works cited

Bechdel, Alison. Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006.

Bloom, Lynn Z. Coming to Life: Teaching Undergraduates to Write Autobiography, 2016, a/b: Auto/Biography Studies, 32:1, 75-86, DOI: 10.1080/08989575.2016.1218231Frommberger, Ulrich. Post-traumatic stress disorder - a diagnostic and therapeutic challenge. Deutsches Arzteblatt International. 2014, 111 (5): 59-65.

Popkin, Jeremy D. Family Memoir, and Self-Discovery, Life Writing, 2015, 12:2, 127-138, DOI: 10.1080/14484528.2015.1023925

WikiProject, Fun Home WikiProject English 1C